Women testified to House panel that they were paid for sexual favors by Gaetz, lawyer says

By Tierney Sneed and Paula Reid, CNN

(CNN) — Two women testified to the House Ethics Committee that they were paid for “sexual favors” by former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, a lawyer for the two women told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.

Additionally, one of the women testified to the congressional panel that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with her then-underage friend in 2017, the lawyer, Joel Leppard, said on “OutFront.” CNN reported that detail Friday.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Leppard said it was his client’s testimony that she did not believe Gaetz knew at the time that her friend was underage.

The ethics probe was effectively ended when Gaetz immediately resigned from Congress after Trump announced the Florida Republican was the president-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Justice. However, the panel is still weighing whether to publicly release a report on its probe and is scheduled to meet Wednesday.

The committee also heard from the formerly underage woman herself, who testified that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17, according to two sources familiar with the congressional investigation.

One of Leppard’s clients was a friend to the then-minor from when they were both in high school, the lawyer said Monday.

“She was invited to a party in July of 2017,” Leppard told Burnett of his client. “She testified to the House that as she was walking out to the pool area, she turned to her right and she witnessed … her friend having sex with Rep. Gaetz. And her friend at that time was 17.”

Leppard said both of his clients testified to the congressional panel that they received payments for sex from Gaetz, usually via Venmo or PayPal, from the summer of 2017 through the beginning of 2019. Leppard said there were “numerous events” at which his clients were paid for sex by the Florida congressman.

“There were events at Airbnbs. There were events at individuals’ houses. There were events that took place at political events,” Leppard said. “There was a trip to New York. There’s a trip to Bahamas. So events like this did happen from time to time, perhaps over 10 times over the course of July 2017 to early January 2019.”

Gaetz has specifically denied ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex. Asked Friday about the testimony from Leppard’s client who says she witnessed Gaetz having sex with the minor, a spokesperson for Gaetz told CNN that “Merrick Garland’s DOJ cleared Matt Gaetz and didn’t charge him.”

The House ethics investigation, which began in 2021, was in addition to a Justice Department criminal probe, launched under the first Trump administration, that was ultimately closed last year without charges against Gaetz.

CNN reported in January that the House committee had reached out to the formerly underage woman for testimony as it expanded its ethics probe into Gaetz. The committee said in June that it was continuing to investigate allegations that Gaetz may have “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.”

A lawyer for the formerly underage woman has called for the panel to release its final report on the Gaetz ethics probe.

“Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” the lawyer, John Clune, tweeted last week.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked for the House panel to turn over its report as well as the underlying materials from the congressional investigation. Some Senate Republicans have also expressed interest in seeing the report, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has come out against its release. All 10 members of the House ethics panel have access to the draft report, CNN reported earlier Monday.

After its yearslong sex-trafficking investigation, the Justice Department decided not to bring criminal charges against Gaetz. CNN previously reported that prosecutors working on the case recommended against charging Gaetz because of questions over whether the central witnesses would be perceived as credible before a jury.

Sources close to the alleged victim have rebutted any suggestion that she was not credible.

“Any first-year law student can tell you that just because a career prosecutor who might have never lost a case decided not to bring charges for perhaps reasons that we don’t know about, doesn’t mean that someone’s innocent,” Leppard told Burnett.

He said his clients are also hoping for the release of the report.

“They want the truth to be known, and they don’t want everything that they have done to be in vain,” Leppard said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Annie Grayer, Haley Talbot and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.